Accepting that my MIL doesn't like me.

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SuedeSeven wrote:

I know she loves me, but I have realized she doesn't particularly like me. My husband also brought this up recently, even tho we hadn't really discussed it before. I have ranted about her before, so I am clearly not distraught over this, as she is a crazy woman and her being very invested in my life would be horribly inconvenient. I do think that she was expecting a different type of DIL than she got. She is used to having absolute control over the family (husband and 2 adult sons) and I think she assumed I would fall neatly under her little umbrella and she would just have one more person to monitor and guide. That is so not what happened. I am extremely independent, don't see why anyone would ever even consider running my life for me, and it would never once occur to me to ask someone else to handle my business without my input. (Favors and help are awesome. Love that. But I am not one to hand over the wheel to someone else while I sit blindly in the back.) My husband grew up thinking this was how life was, but has become more independent since we've been together. She will tell me what my husband and I should be doing in various aspects of our life and I will listen politely, then go off and do what he and I had decided to do anyway. This drives her insane. She truly expected me to accept her every dictate without question. She didn't want us to buy a house or a second car, because of the expense. (Note, I am a doctor and we are buying a Subaru. I feel like this is an attainable goal.) She is hugely opposed to us finding out the baby's gender or doing any preparation, other than buying "a crib and some onsies."

I'm rambling. The gist is that I have realized I'm not the DIL she wanted and I am actually very happy about that. I don't want to be the kind of person she would have chosen and I doubt things would be going as well in my life if she had the running of it.

Completely agree that the way to handle it is politely listen and do things your way anyways. Dealing with same thing except it drives her even more insane especially since we temporarily live with her so in her head because she's letting us stay with her we have to live our lives the way she says or when it comes to baby do the things she says or that she has some say in how we raise our child because we are under her roof. But nope. So I understand what it's like to have mil tolerate you but not like you because you're not what she expected so to speak.

We live almost 1000 miles away now and she alternates between being hyper involved and not caring, at all. Take the pregnancy for example. She was upset that we hadn't told her we were trying. We did, but it took 2 years and she didn't know we were doing IUI. Since then, she has cared about nothing to do with the pregnancy. She claimed to be "thrilled" today when we told her the gender, but hasn't asked a single question about how the baby or I am doing otherwise.

The mil and dil relationship can be a difficult one. Perhaps she is intimidated by your success (Doctor, wow!) and struggles to bond with you. Women can be competitive and if she's always had her way, it can be very hard for her to lose it. I'm sure most mil's want their lives to stay the same even after their sons marry. That being said, you shouldn't have to asked her permission to buy a home or a car. That's ridiculous. I think your attitude is right on. While I do t think you should change at all to make her happy, I think you should respect her as your husband's mother. It sounds like you do since you listen to her advice and politely nod. It might be a good thing that you both have a respectful relationship and nothing more.

I try very hard, but she is emotionally abusive toward my husband, so it's difficult to remain polite. We are fine most of the time, but I won't have her mistreating him. What hurts my heart the most is that he only recently started seeing this as anything outside of the usual. He just accepted it as the way things were and went with it. Plus he's been trained his whole life to follow this pattern with her.

I feel as like we could have the same mother in law.. My husband was completely brainwashed on how a child is supposed to grow and branch out and want to try things on their own..now that he has meet me he is mad she had basically been keeping him from growing up. That was just "normal" in his house. His mother does not like me and has not liked me since day one because I am very independent. She lost her control and the relationship she had with her son, him telling her every detail of his life ect.. She feels the same about my sister in law also. She is also mad I have chosen day care over my husband's 73 year old grandmother keeping my baby. She can barely stand because of severe back issues and the strain of holding grandbabies hurts her back sitting down. Needless to say..I totally understand how you feel.

I completely understand!! I think it is crazy my husband and his mother do this..I think it is very sad when he has these realizations of.. I consider it verbal abuse personally. He is belittled and treated like dirt by his mother and he thought it was out of genuine love until he meet me and that wasn't the way I spoke to him. It hurts him more than anything and it drives me insane. It's very hard to hold my tongue when we are around her.

The current situation is that she wants him to fly down and stay for a month to clean her house. I'm not even joking. She is in a managed care facility, bc she almost died for about the 4th time and the house is so bad the county won't let her back in. My BIL lives in the house still, but she comes up with every insane reason why he can't possibly be expected to take care of this. Mind you, my husband moved out of her house when he was 18 for college and never lived there again. He's 42 now, so I fail to see how this is his responsibility.

She tells him that he doesn't care about his family. He tells her that his first priority is now his wife and coming son and this is his primary family concern. She then yells at him for being selfish and putting his own life above her needs. Woman! He's not saying he wants to abandon his family to become a starving artist! He's saying he doesn't want to leave his pregnant wife for a month to clean up a mess he didn't make. This was also after he said he would come down for a week or so, but no longer, and refused to do this all by himself. Apparently that wasn't enough.

I could have written this post. I too feel like my mil doesn't like me. She also expects you to do as she says, and isn't capable of seeing that there could possibly be a different opinion. She's controlling and then acts as if she's the victim. It doesn't matter what I do, it still never seems to be enough. I'm glad you've come to terms with your situation, and I hope that it's freeing! I obviously haven't. I know she doesn't like me but I still feel like I need to do more to please her. My husband agrees with the things I see and thankfully doesn't think it's all in my head lol. There are days I wished we lived farther away from his family. Distance can definitely be a blessing.

DH gets all of the overt blame. MIL won't put blame on me when talking to him and wouldn't say anything directly to me either. She just blames DH for ridiculous things! Why should he be in any way responsible for their washer needing the filter cleaned? He learned how to do it in 3 minutes from a YouTube video. She was angry w him bc he refused to fly down, rent a car drive there, stay in a hotel, and clean the filter. He offered to send the link to his brother, but she said that didn't make sense bc DH already knew how to do it.

How much lazier can someone get?! Or stupidly absurd? Fly to another state to clean a filter. Does your husband ever tell her flat out that she's ridiculous or out of line? My MIL has really pissed me off in the past, as in I refused to speak to her for nine months, but I remember when my DH put my MIL in her place one day about a week before we were supposed to fly to Japan to visit them where they were stationed (with our two year old) over clothes for pictures. I can't tell you how giddy and happy my heart was when he was talking to her on the phone. I actually had to turn away so he wouldn't see my smirk. Between that and when he promptly put his sister in her place for yelling at me for nothing (she was mad I was 6mo pregnant because she was having trouble conceiving) I don't think I've felt as much heart bursting pride. Like seriously, who knew a husband standing up to stupid family BS could be such a turn on! Hahaha!

I think we literally have the same MIL. Lol. We actually don't have contact with her or my FIL at the present time for about two and a half years now over a ridiculous falling our regarding our wedding. (She told people I ruined HER day...) at any rate, my husband is 31 has not lived in their home for YEARS but one occasion a random piece of mail will still get sent there for whatever reason. To this day she will open his mail...he like I said is 31 years old...then she will take a picture of the mail and text it to him saying "this came in the mail for you" it is beyond infuriating.

He's starting to do so and its awesome! It's still frustrating, because there is the inevitable backlash and she is becoming more demanding and guilt-tripping as he holds his ground, but I know he feels good that he's standing up to her and I'm so proud of him.

When my husband was a teenager, he set up a checking account and his mother was on it with him. He kept the same account for years and never thought anything about her being on the account. When we got engaged, she decided to access his account to see what he spent on the ring. Needless to say, he changed accounts right quick. Sadly, this happened after she used his bank info to take out a credit card in his name, to pay for his brother's tuition. Luckily, she is the one paying for it and on time, but you can't just do that!

Ooh boy! I would have filed a fraud charge against her, or at least threatened her with one unless she took out a loan of some sort to pay off the card so it wasn't in his name anymore. That's some self righteous BS right there. Seems like something my mother would do and I would have no problem getting he police involved for that, but I also haven't spoken to her in years.